We spent a day off in Silifke and decided to go to the tourism office to see if they had any materials on Silifke and the surrounding area. The only information they had was a leaflet produced by the local tourist association that was basically an extended advertorial for the Tolga hotel. The booklet was introduced by the president of the Silifke tourism association, who just happened also to be the proprietor of the Tolga hotel. Most of the booklet was taken up with eulogies on the wonderful facilities on offer at the Tolga, lavishly illustrated with pictures of couples frolicking on the Tolga's private beach and grinning inanely at each other over the hotel bar, pictures of circa-1980 furnished rooms and ancient "conference facilities". Interspersed with these, however, were little nuggets about the surrounding area. "[The Goksu] Delta is the house for the birds to survivo, breed, feed, migrate and temporarily accommodate" and "The Roman-Germen Emperor and the 3 Crusade Mission Commander, Frederick Barbarossa was drawn while trying to cross the Goksu river on the way to Jerusalem". Who would have thought the 2nd crusade could have been brought to a standstill by an illustration. We fared somewhat better than Barbarossa, crossing the Goksu on the old Roman bridge in the middle of Silifke and headed on down the coast.
Up in the mountains the weather had been ideal for walking - never much more than about 25В°C, mostly overcast and cool. Down on the coastal plain it was nearer 35В°, sticky and humid, with a fierce sun beating down. On our first day out of Silifke we were already suffering badly by lunchtime - beetroot red faces, sweat sodden clothes and pounding headaches. Luckily, we stopped for lunch in the little fishing village of Narlikuyu. Here a icy cold spring bubbled up into the crystal clear waters of the harbour so we went for a refreshing swim through alternating bands of icy-cold and sun-warmed water. All followed by a delicious seafood meal and a snooze. Restored, we carried on up the coast to Kizkilezi (or "Fortress of the Maiden") where a thousand year old castle seems to float in the sea 200 metres off shore. The castle was originally built by the Byzantines, but enlarged and rebuilt at the time of the crusades by the Armenian kings of Cilicia. Various legends are attached to the castle, but the one from which it gets its name goes like this: the king heard from an oracle that his daughter would be killed by a snake bite, so he had her locked up in the castle on an island off the coast where he knew there were no snakes. Unfortunately, his chief minister sent a basket of fruit out to the girl in which a snake was hiding, the princess was bitten and died. The locals apparently believe that the snake still lurks on the island ready to bite unsuspecting trespassers.
Once again, James managed to lose the map only this time he failed to find it again, so we were restricted to walking along the busy main road between Silifke and Adana. We stopped on the way in Mersin and Tarsus, the ancient home of St Paul. Mersin is a big, modern port city, but has the huge advantage of an English language bookshop and a Chinese restaurant. After two months of living off kebabs, we were desperate for a change of diet and having run out of reading material in the middle of the mountains, we had been reduced to reading and re-reading our guidebooks and searching for hidden meaning in the ingredients lists on our chocolate bars. Tarsus, despite its venerable history, had little left to show for it. An old well, supposedly in the garden of St Paul's house and some lovely restored Ottoman era houses, plus a few bits of Roman column scattered around. 
On the way out of town, we came across a monument to the great Turkish heroes - a series of busts (Alp Arslan, Ghengiz Khan, Tamerlane, Ozman Ghazi, Mehmet the Conqueror, Suleiman the Magnificent) were arranged in a semi-circle around the inevitable bust of the greatest modern Turkish hero - Kemal Attaturk.
Adana, the fourth largest city in Turkey with nearly 2 million inhabitants, is a huge, bustling, hot, sticky industrial city in the heart of a fertile plain. In Adana, we were joined by Tom's girlfriend Kate, who decided to come and check that we weren't living out her "Brokeback Mountain" nightmares and to see for herself what Tom was willingly putting himself through. 
We got an incredibly warm welcome in Adana from Firat Sezginsoy, the brother of one of James' colleagues. Firat was demob happy, having just finished his military service with the marines in Izmir and told us great stories of life in the military. Apparently, the military (as staunch defenders of the secular state) refuse to stock products made by companies they perceive as islamist. Given that most edible consumer goods we have eaten in Turkey are produced by one of these companies, their diets must be a bit restricted.
Cenk, Firat's brother, had given him strict instructions to ensure we had the best Adana kebab in the world. Firat was as good as his word - he took us to his favourite "hole in the wall" kebab shop where he held forth on his theory of kebabs - "they are no good if they are healthy and eaten in some fancy restaurant - they always taste much better if they're swimming in grease and eaten in some seedy kebab joint". Sure enough, the rolls of bread filled with grilled kebabs of minced lamb and hot red chilli, crammed with mint, salad and fresh tomatoes and oozing thick slicks of orange-coloured fat were delicious. Firat introduced us to the owners and told them what we were doing - "oh yes, we know all about them - we read about them in the paper" they replied. Apparently, there was a story a couple of weeks ago about 2 English guys walking through Turkey so we have become media stars. Next stop was a bakery for Kunefe - a sort of cheese pie, topped with shredded wheat and fried, sprinkled with icing sugar then liberally smeared with clotted cream. After that, we were good for nothing but an afternoon snooze. Cenk rang to check up on Firat and make sure he had followed up his instructions
Cenk - "How was your kebab James?"
James - "Delicious - better than anything else I've had"
Cenk - "Well, I did promise you the best kebab you've ever had.....I can't promise you you won't spend the whole of tomorrow in the bathroom, but that wasn't part of the deal".
Luckily, our stomachs appear to have become immune to such things (hopefully not famous last words) and we were able to walk out of Adana into the cotton growing plains beyond. Walking along beside a deep, fast flowing irrigation ditch, Tom decided that he fancied swimming some of the way to Jerusalem so stripped off and slipped into the water, leaving poor Kate to carry his bag. He scarcely had to kick his legs to keep up with us and had a lovely 30 minute refreshing swim, carried along by the current.
Early the next morning, we were stopped by a guy on the back of a tractor with the usual "Where are you from? Where are you going?" question. Expecting the usual nod, awkward pause whilst the person addressing us realised he didn't know any more English and we searched our limited Turkish vocabulary for something suitable to say, then the wave and farewells, we were completely taken aback when he replied "****ing 'ell that's a long way!". It turned out he had just returned from England where he had been living (illegally) for a year and a half in Streatham, running a market stall in Whitechapel. When the police finally caught up with him, he had been offered the chance of returning to Turkey or going to Germany (where he had the right of residence). He had chosen to come back to Turkey, allegedly saying to the police "Germany? What I want to go there for? Eez crap".
Beyond Adana, we reached the North-East Corner of the Mediterranean in the fold of the Bay of Iskenderun and reached a significant milestone when we finally turned due South to head towards Jerusalem. This moving and momentous moment was slightly spoiled by the stinking and rubbish strewn beach we were walking along (complete with rotting carcass of a dead turtle), the view of heavy industrial emplacements spread out along the coast (oil refineries, steel works, phosphate plants etc.) and the thick layer of grime coating us, our clothes and our baggage that had been spewed out of the chimneys of a mega plant complex producing an odd combination of chromium, bricks and petrol.
In Payas, further round the gulf, we stumbled upon the magnificent Mehmet Sokullu Pasha Complex - a huge, fortress like Caravanserai complex built by the Grand Vizier of Suleiman the Magnificent. It was something of a declaration of Ottoman power and prestige in a land that had only recently been conquered by the Ottomans at the time. The complex contains a mosque, a hamman, a covered bazaar and endless courtyards for the accommodation, feeding, watering and storage of merchants, pilgrims, their livestock and wares. It should by all rights be a major tourist destination, so impressive is the complex, but the huge steelworks dominating the town to the South deters all but the most determined (or foolhardy) of visitors. We were shown round by two lovely Turks, who had bumped into us on the outskirts of Payas and wanted to practice their English. They had recently been made redundant by the local steel plant and were now trying to set up a trade union to get some redress. A somewhat risky business when the steelworks is apparently owned by the military and tradesunions are forbidden.
Walking out past the steelworks, we were called over to the gate by a very strange man looking a bit like a cross between Mr. Bean and Jasper Carrot, balding and wearing a pair of very tight bright green trousers. As we stopped to see what he wanted, he started moving his body in an incredibly fluid motion. Leaning back at an alarming angle, one hand behind his head, smiling with a lewd grimace and making strange "eh, eh, eh" sounds, he started to perform the most incredibly pelvic thrust, whipping his whole body into it and pumping away. We were too stunned to even think of taking a photo (unfortunately) then just collapsed into fits of giggles.
Not much to see in Iskenderun, founded by Alexander the Great following his decisive victory over the Persians at nearby Issos, except for an early morning exercise class 
being held on a huge public square in the middle of the city. Tempted to join in for the comedy value, but star jumps with 20 kg on your back probably not a very good idea.
Very relieved to head back up into the mountains to escape the heat of the coast and head in land towards Antioch. Our relief was fairly short lived, however, as, having ignored the warnings of pretty much everyone we met that the road didn't go anywhere, we continued on regardless until our path ran out 600 metres above sea level in a meadow surrounded by pine trees. Tried to console ourselves that it was actually a lovely picnic spot and really it was a good thing that we had walked all this way in the burning heat just to have to turn around and go back down as we needed the mountain climbing practice. Don't think we were fooling anyone though, least of all ourselves. We then had the added humiliation of having to walk back down through several villages to be met with lots of "I told you so...." expressions. Luckily, the villagers were far too polite to rub it in and instead invited us for tea, ice-cold water and delicious greengage figs. Evidently, we had gatecrashed some important village meeting as the entire male population was gathered together in the shade of the mosque discussing weighty matters. Or rather, the village head man, backed up by the local hajj, was holding forth to the rest of the village, whilst they nodded sagely and muttered agreement, apart from a few poor dissenters who raised feeble objections, only to be knocked down by the force of the headman's rhetoric. 
No idea what was going on, despite our attempts to find out from the imam (a gently, scholarly looking man with two pairs of glasses draped round his neck).
We finally found the right path over the mountains, pointed in the right direction by the mayor of Arsuz, rather unusually for Turkey, a Christian. This part of Turkey has a sizeable Greek Orthodox population absorbed into Turkey when Attaturk annexed the small Arabic speaking state of Antioch in the late 1930's, from the French Mandate territories. Once again, we headed up into the mountains, climbing to over 1,500 metres in the hot sun
. The following morning, disaster struck as we ran out of water, still some 6 hours walk from Antioch, and with all the springs dry. There wasn't a drop of water to be found. Just as we were getting seriously worried, we heard the babble of a brook and stumbled towards it through the undergrowth, half delirious with relief. We downed several pints each and filled out bottles, hugely relieved. Until, that is, we found the source of our stream a kilometre further up. We arrived at what we thought was a well to find a strange man lying in bed under a tree. He leapt up, wearing a only a string vest and pair of Y-fronts and invited us over for tea in Spanish. He offered us water, so we started to move towards the well - "Oh no, don't drink that, it's not good - it comes from the chromium mine". It turned out our beautiful clear mountain stream bubbling up from a mountain well was in fact the waste water being pumped out from a mine. We went white as a sheet and started to feel queasy, until he reassured us that we'd probably be ok. Now mercifully clothed, he fed us delicious water melon and tea. He apologised (at 8am!) that he didn't have any raki for us to drink, but he had finished his last bottle (all of it) the night before. He said he had been bitten by a snake and, before we could stop him, pulled down his trousers to show us two ugly red puncture marks in the back of his leg. "Oh, it's ok" he said, "I just poured some raki on it and drank the rest of the bottle - it was fine". He had worked as a bulldozer driver all over the Arab world and in Spain (hence the Spanish), but now worked this little chromium mine apparently on his own. The story was quite confusing at this point, but it appeared he used to have people working for him, but they had died in an accident, so now he mined on his own, spending a week up at the mine and a week back in Adana with his family. We left him with half a bottle of whisky, much to his delight. Later that day, he passed us in a pickup truck and stopped to thank us again for the whisky. judging from the smell of his breath and his flushed face, it hadn't lasted very long.
The path down the other side of the mountain was a really windy, hairpin bend affair, squiggling down the mountain like a piece of spaghetti. 
Arriving hot and bothered at the bottom, we were invited for yet another cup of tea by a young man who had just graduated from University as an English teacher. We had a long chat with him about how he had won a scholarship to a school in Kaiseri, then come back to study at University in Antakya (Hatay/Antioch) and was now waiting to find out where the government would post him as a newly qualified teacher. He showed us one of his text books, which was from a course all about Britain. It was really very comprehensive, discussing the political system, the education system, health care, etc. Quite odd to read all about Britain from the perspective of a non-native. In the section on culture, it said "People in other countries usually just get sleepy when they drink alcohol. In England, however, they get violent and go out and look for a fight".
Finally, we arrived in Antakya, the ancient Antioch ad Orontes where the early church community under St Peter and St Paul first got the name of Christians. We visited the cave-church of St Peter where the early Christians used to meet. It is carved into the mountains (the Mountain of the Cross) on the edge of Antioch, complete with escape passage carved through the rock and out onto the mountainside dating from the Roman persecution. The front of the cave was covered with a beautifully simple Romanesque front by the crusaders.
We received a plenary indulgence for our troubles, granted by Pope Paul VI to all who visit the church when he preached mass in the cave in 1967. Despite being absolved of all our sins thus far, we didn't feel much different walking back into town to see the archaeological museum. Didn't take us long to put ourselves back into a state of sin giggling at the rude mosaics on display in the museum. 
We joined the small Catholic community in their little church (housed in a couple of Ottoman period houses in the old town area of Antioch) and were welcomed with unbelievable kindness, treated to tea and taken out for dinner afterwards by some of the parishioners. A lovely evening with a Turkish family who had converted from Islam. Although Antioch is a fairly tolerant place, with Christians and Muslims living peacefully side-by-side for generations, this tolerance is not apparently extended to converts. The family had endured abuse and worse at the hands of the Muslim community and although they had the support and help of the catholic community, it is a very small community and they live in constant fear. Yet despite all this, they remained unbelievably positive and filled with life and happiness. We felt really humbled by their incredible resilience and the depth of their faith. 
We set off rather later than intended the next day after an unexpectedly late night, which meant we got breakfast in our hotel and Tom got to meet properly the poor middle aged Australian lady he had walked in on the previous day, mistaking her room for ours. She was extremely sweet about it and not at all embarrassed. Unlike Tom, who went a deep scarlet colour and mumbled out profuse apologies.
Heading towards the border, after 2 months of cheese and tomato sandwiches occasionally supplemented with kebabs and salad, we started to have food fantasies - "Wouldn't you just love a Sunday roast, with all the trimmings, roast potatoes, parsnips, gravy and some really stodgy pudding like treacle sponge.... Or a curry, a nice spicy greasy curry.... Mmmm, a fry up - full English breakfast with HP sauce, just think of all that pork....". Unfortunately, it was back to the cheese and tomato sandwiches, with, yes, you've guessed it, a kebab the following lunchtime. The kebab restaurant, 1km from the border, was actually very good and in a lovely location, in a clearing in the middle of a beautiful pine forest. Got a bit of a surprise when the proprietor greeted us with a "Sorry mate, what do you want to eat?" in a strong Mancunian accent - he had lived for several years in Manchester and chatted away with Tom about Preston and Stockport. He also introduced us to the head of customs, the chief of police and the regional military commander who were all having lunch in his restaurant. It ensured us a smooth passage over the Turkish border at least, but we were both a bit anxious about what awaited us on the other side in Syria...
I can't believe I have only just discovered your blog Tom!!!
After months of no news - and no postcard :( my curiosity finally got the better of me and I googled you.
What an amazing story... I will have to print it all out and bring myself up to date on all your adventures.
Best of luck with the last leg!
All my love,
Mora X
Posted by: Mora | June 30, 2006 at 05:30 PM